Laura Roehler Receives Oustanding Teacher Education Award from IRA

5/3/2002-This past weekend, the International Reading Association (IRA) recognized Dr. Laura R. Roehler with one of its most prestigious honors: the Outstanding Teacher Education in Reading Award. Given annually, this award is presented to a college or university teacher of reading methods or reading-related courses for their accomplishments as a knowledgeable professional, a developer and implementer of outstanding courses in reading, a leader in the field of reading, and a role model for their pupils.

Dr. Roehler is Professor of Teacher Education at Michigan State University, where she has been on the faculty since 1972. During her distinguished career she has taught reading, writing, language arts, and childrens literature courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She has also developed, implemented, and evaluated various courses and educational programs throughout the state of Michigan. Her involvement with professional journals includes terms on the review boards of the Journal of Education Psychology, the Journal of Reading Behavior, Reading Research Quarterly, the Reading Teacher, and the National Reading Conference Yearbook, among others. Her CIERA work on diversity and teacher preparation (with colleague and former CIERA Director P. David Pearson) led to the development of the Reading Classroom Explorer, a Web-based program whose many teacher education resources include video clips of best classroom practices, a forum for peer support and communication with instructors, and a tool that allows students to include hypermedia links in their course papers and post their work on-line.

Dr. Roehler is widely recognized by her colleagues and students as an outstanding teacher and researcher, who has dedicated her life to furthering the education of all students. CIERA congratulates Dr. Laura R. Roehler on this well-deserved recognition of her many accomplishments.